Winning

Creeping up on 50, for the first time in my life, I have become a voracious reader. As knowledge goes in, understanding comes out. I am currently reading The Kite Runner and it is largely about a son winning his father's love. Of course, that sounds absurd. Shouldn't a father's love be unconditional, readily available, always accessible? Yet, having to win love is often the case, or that's how it appears to us sons anyway.

He could hardly stand it. I laid wheezing, flipping back and forth like a doomed fish, bridging on my heals and on my head; the other boy's grip tightening around my neck, his chest pressing even with mine. I think he's still yelling, but I can't hear. I see nothing but the black and white trim of the neckline on my opponent's orange singlet. No cheers. No sound. No hope. I can't breathe. I surrender. My legs lay flat. I give in to what feels like a car lowering slowly onto my small frame. Then a sound, a familiar sound. A dull hard thud that I know is really a slap. The referee ending the match; his palm racking the surface of the padded green stage that I just fell off of. A cheerleader sitting cross-legged lends a glance as I get back up and I know it is an attempt at kindness, but it fades fast and she joins her pack in revving up for my 105 pound team mate; a surer bet. He is already sitting back down. As lame as it would have been, strictly against the warrior code, I wanted him to run down and hug me. I wanted him to say that I did my best and that he was always proud of me. But I had failed again.

He wasn't angry or even disappointed. It was more like confused; like he knew that I had quit and just couldn't understand why. He loved me; more than I knew, certainly more than I would acknowledge to myself. But I needed him then and couldn't figure out how to tell him. I couldn't even figure out how to tell myself. So it went on, the losing. Several pins and too much silence after. Walking with my Columbus High Sailors green and white duffel bag, head down, away from the sweaty half-naked teenage boys out into the cold. I didn't want to get in the car. I just wanted to do it all over again and change the ending; turn that kid over, smother him, hear the cheers and see Dad still standing. I wanted a man hug, a victory hug. But I couldn't change it. It was painful to rehash. Eventually I quit.

The next chapter is on the sunnier side. There was respect and recognition and love underneath. We coached together. He had me demonstrate moves for the junior high kids. I sparred with the middle weights. I refereed the younger ones. I sprawled out on my belly, fanning three fingers under shoulder blades, giving points, blowing the whistle, slapping the mat. It was all upstairs. It was out from under. It was promising. It was easy to get in the car, to stand in the cold, to wait and talk and strategize. 


I stayed close to the sport. I loved wresting. I still do. We watched lots of matches together and we went to the NCAA Championships year after year. We traveled. He told jokes. We ate together and sat next to each other in the stands. He loved wrestling and he loved me. Wrestling was a right of passage. It just took some time to get there. It happened in the car, the hotel rooms, the restaurants and stadiums. Next to him-anywhere.

Winter always ended though. Then there was golf. But that's another story; one about fathers and sons and long walks together. It's another reel I play back and treasure. Someday I'll walk over a big hill and across a small stream and beyond the green, just before the next tee and sit with him on the bench while we wait to tee off. And it will be right and real and perfect. And I'll get that victory hug and we'll laugh under the Iowa sunshine and I'll see my daughter in his eyes. 

Communion

When I was a young boy, I made my first Communion. I listened to the priest pronounce “The body of Christ” and I opened my mouth to have the Communion wafer laid on my tongue. It was a special day. I dressed up. Friends and relatives attended and gave me cards and gifts. I was educated about what this meant, but I really had no idea. I soon learned it was about belonging. I got to be part of the folks who got in line. I didn’t have to sit in the pew anymore and wait for my parents and elder siblings to return.

In my teens, I was part of our church’s Youth Community. John McCarey, the Youth Minister, explained why we used the word “community”. He said there were groups of chairs and apples, but people need something more engaging. Made sense. John also took me to visit a Trappist monastery where we observed Brothers who lived, worked, ate and prayed together. That philosophy gained weight with me as I moved into adulthood and I eventually sought this new form of togetherness wherever I went. Of course, I recognized the impact that family had on my awareness of communal living. And I never forgot the nuns I met from the parishes we were part of. Many were Franciscans who also lived communally and devoted their lives to upholding the Order’s mission.

After living in Community with three other live-in volunteers at a Catholic Worker House in my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, I explored what it meant to pursue community away from home, without a safety net. I moved out East and met some wonderful people. I spent time with some great thinkers, principled leaders and everyday, hardworking, people of faith with communal values. I lived with people who were struggling financially, many who helped me with my spiritual struggles. While I was staying above a Men’s Shelter in Cecil County, MD, I made another leap, outside the country.
 

I have a clear memory of the trip I took to the Mexican border back in the mid-’90s. I was with a group observing and experiencing the plight of immigrants and families living on both sides of the border. We were young and old, homeless and housed, clergy and lay persons. We wanted to know the struggles of folks and families. We met with immigration lawyers, border patrol, factory officials and families squatting just on the other side. One night we stayed at a community center in El Paso, Texas, where hundreds of men slept on the floor each night before taking early morning buses to the farms and fields where they worked long hours for meager wages. Tired and humble, several men gathered for mass each night. It was an honor to pray with them. The mass was in Spanish and I knew little of the language back then. But I knew the mass. I felt Catholic and catholic at once. When I took communion, I really felt it! This body of Christ was one body, broken and shared. I didn’t know these men. I didn’t know their lives, but I knew their faith. I knew the love from which they thrived and sacrificed. I realized then what I often share with others now- that we are all much more the same than we are different. Sounds like a trite or simple phrase, but it is really a deep and special truth; something I have to remind myself of when I feel angry or divisive.

Now I live in community with my family and several friends who reside here at Clairvaux Farm permanently and the guests (residents) who are experiencing homelessness and join us while they gather resources and seek housing. We have a large network of friends, donors, visitors, volunteers and neighbors who support and commune with us in a myriad of ways. We meet, work, play, sing, cook, eat and pray together. (Next year we'll start planting and harvesting together). We also fight and struggle together. In the midst of it all, I watch a little girl with the biggest heart I’ve ever known. She welcomes new-comers, greets visitors, makes life fun every day and thrives on love and friendship in a way that I stand in awe of. I sometimes imagine what she will share of her experience of communion. All I can say is stay tuned. Carry on Valeria. Carry on.